Sammie Martin has gone from the North to the Southwest and now Northeastern and beyond in pursuit of her basketball dreams.

This year she reached several goals, including a key achievement of a Division I NCAA basketball scholarship.

On Friday Martin, 18, verbally committed to study psychology and play for Northeastern University in Boston, starting in the fall of 2019. She will sign officially in November.

She visited the campus with her parents Lisa and Sam last month.

“It was a really beautiful campus,” she said. “It’s in a really good area. I thought it was a good fit. They were very consistent with how they were communicating with me. They were always straight up and honest with me.” She hopes to have an immediate impact when she takes to the court next season.

It’s the first time Martin has been home to Sudbury since April, but she wouldn’t have it any other way for her sport.

Martin was a competitive dancer with Extreme Dance Studio until she was in Grade 7. In Grade 8, she began playing hoops for Carl Nesbitt Public School, and in the Sudbury Jam system. She was following in her father’s footsteps — her dad had played high school ball at the former Sudbury High School.

She played two years at Lasalle Secondary with Mitch Lalonde and Dennis Gauthier. “They enforced really good habits, which was a major step in my development as well,” she adds.

She moved to Sault Ste Marie for Grade 11 to play at Prolific Prep North, an experiment in creating a Northern basketball prep school that barely lasted the season.

She then moved to Southwest Academy in London, Ont. (which is based in Regina Mundi Catholic High School) and currently plays in the Ontario Scholastic Basketball Association.

Martin is finishing out her victory lap year now at Southwest, and will actually return to Sudbury on Oct. 16 to play LoEllen Park Secondary, which has also joined the OSBA.

Martin added a Team Canada singlet to her ever-growing collection this summer when she was selected for the U18 national team. She learned of her selection to a tryout on the night of her high school prom. “It’s hard to put into words how excited I was.” It was an especially meaningful selection because Martin had missed the first two tryout camps due to injury. A sprained right ankle kept her out from November until mid-March.

“I had a really strong second half of my season (at Southwest) and I think that helped me get recognized by (Canada Basketball),” she said.

She survived the final tryout and joined Team Canada for the North American qualifier that secured a place for Canada in the FIBA U19 Women’s Basketball World Cup in 2019. Team Canada won the silver against Team USA in August in Mexico.

Martin is used to playing most of her high school games for Southwest and scoring 20 points per game. She played a limited role in Mexico, scoring two points and pulling down four rebounds.

It was an adjustment and a somewhat humbling experience not being on the court as often as usual.

“Now if there are people who don’t play as much, now I can appreciate that because I had never been in that position,” she says.

At the same time, she was “just super, super happy to be there and enjoy the experience. That’s my goal next year to make the U19 team and to have an impact on that team.”

Her takeaway includes knowing what work likes ahead in her development.

“It shows me I’m just going to have to work so much harder,” she said. “I thought I would be happy just making the team but I want to play.”

She recalls the support of the Mexican fans when Canada played before 5,000 fans packed solid into the arena.

“That was amazing, a surreal experience,” she said. “It was unbelievable. The Mexican national anthem came on and the entire arena was screaming the anthem. Our entire team got chills.”

The Mexican fans sought out the Canadian players for autographs. “They just loved Canada,” she said. “There was this little group of kids at every single game cheering for us.”

Their Mexican fans told the Canadians they’d cheer for Canada in the final.

Canada lost to the U.S. in the final but Martin recalls how the Canadians stayed on the court signing autographs and posing for photos with fans.

“It was crazy,” she said. “I’m 18 years old and I’m signing autographs for the kids in Mexico. It was so cool. From that entire experience, that’s something I won’t forget, being loved by people you don’t even know.”

Now it’s back to the gym, to enjoy her final season of OSBA and to refine her technique at centre so she can return to Team Canada and play at the U19 worlds. It’s the type of work she likes, where the drive is to be the best, to run down the court in transition after a fast guard and set up for a possible rebound.

She recalls how Southwest, her high school team, had to win on a layup on a buzzer beater to make the 2018 playoffs.

“I like those games, the tough games where everybody has to be playing their best to win,” she said. “Those are the games you feel best about. You played the absolute best you can and you won – so you know that you did enough to win.”